4 Millennial Myths that Should Not Impact Your Talent Strategy

April 11, 2018

While there is a growing number of publications on generational differences, much is incorrect or misleading. Typically information falls into one of two categories:

First, widely generalized statements that apply to anyone. Often these are a marketing exercise, like “Top 8 Tips for Managing Millennials in the Workplace.” Suggestions include tips like “explain the company vision” or “provide professional development,” neither of which are surprising or unique to Millennials.

Second are more harmful and untrue statements with no supporting evidence, such as “Millennials are notorious job-hoppers who dislike bureaucracy and hierarchies.” Data points to support these claims, if any are provided, are merely based on simple, unscientific polling and have no basis in scientific fact.
Source: Adapted from Motivation and Performance by MacRae and Furnham (Kogan Page, 2017)

I’d like to think that I’m not a person with many pet peeves. I generally don’t get bothered by very much, and even if I do, it passes quickly. But there’s one specific set of misinformation that totally drives me up the wall, has for years, and will continue to as long as we build our talent strategies around it. That information, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, is about Millennials.

It’s one thing to passively listen to or read something about Millennial generalizations that makes vague claims, but when we as business leaders start making plans for budgeting around what we assume to be true, nothing good can come of this. In other words, how would you like to be the one that budgets for a “Millennial engagement project” only to find out after the fact that it was a waste of time, resources, and effort?

Below is a podcast interview I performed with a friend and colleague focusing on four key myths about managing Millennials. Every business leader should listen to this as it’s one of the most common issues or challenges I hear about in the workplace and it’s only going to become more so over time. In the conversation I make some shocking claims about other workplace demographics to try and demonstrate the point that overgeneralizing and stereotyping is the best way to sabotage critical talent planning and execution.

Show Notes

These kinds of conversations happen every day at employers globally. But are they true? Do they reflect reality? In this episode, I talk with Kristina Minyard (a fellow Millennial) about some of these and other comments that are directed at Millennials around the world

It’s hard to get through a day today without hearing something about Millennials in the workplace. Recently this demographic group surpassed all others, taking the slot as the largest population in the workplace. In this entertaining and insightful episode, listeners will not only change how they think about Millennials and generations in the workplace–they will also rethink some of the marketing messages they see targeting this group on a daily basis.

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Connect with Kristina on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hrecruit

Learn more about Ben’s new book on how artificial intelligence technologies are changing the face of HR: http:/AIHRBook.com